Abstract—Augmented Reality (AR) and Geographic

Information System (GIS) can be applied in various areas.

They can be utilized to provide information on identifying the

environments. Since most of the colleges don’t offer AR and

GIS courses, this paper presents an independent study

framework about how college students can learn AR, GIS,

Database, mobile app development through the emerging

independent study. It is very important to know how

Geolocation can be used to make very dynamic applications

that users can interact with based on their location. This

Independent Study framework will be using many new web

and mobile technologies that are open-sourced. The purpose of

this study is to demonstrate the usefulness and the benefits of

knowledge on GIS/AR.

Index Terms—MongoDB, angularjs, google maps, ionic

framework, geolocation, hybrid mobile application.

I. INTRODUCTION

Geographic Information System (GIS) is rooted in

intellectual practices, populated by data and powered by

mathematical analysis. A survey conducted by Schuurman

[1] suggested that currently, the main use of GIS is for

spatial analysis, predictive modelling, cartography and

visualization. The SI Industry, also known as the GIS

industry, is a rapidly growing industry. GIS maps the exact

location and survey coordinates of an object in space to

provide answer to queries using a computer system [2].

Many popular applications like PokemonGO and Uber

have great success with their brand as they have geo-based

products. Users experience more engagement with the

product when their location depends on it. This new trend

has exposed the possibilities of geo-based apps and services

as they have the most active users. Many of this geo-based

apps have made a social impact with their users as they

need to go out and move around to get the most out of the

app. It has also allowed the users to be more active

physically which is a great initiative to be more connected

with the world.

As these geo-based apps gain popularity among users,

lawmakers are eyeing geolocation apps as there are many

privacy concerns have arisen regarding user tracking. Today,

GPS location-aware smart phones and other devices collect

enormous amounts of data about where people go and what

they do. This information can be aggregated with other

information to determine ‘who they are’ with precision and

Manuscript received August 16, 2017; revised October 21, 2017.

Jonathan Rodriguez was with School of Computer Science at Kean

University, Union, NJ, USA (e-mail: rodrjon1@kean.edu).

Ching-Yu Huang is with School of Computer Science at Kean

University, Union, NJ, USA (e-mail: chuang@kean.edu).

accuracy [3].

As geolocation is becoming an important component of

daily lives (Ex. Navigation devices), geolocation will face a

raft of new regulations. To avoid leaking consumer data and

protecting their privacy, greater protection of the data

should be accounted for.

This independent has helped the understanding of why

geo-based systems are so popular nowadays and their

usefulness for users. With the end product being a location

based system which may be used for building navigation or

even open house navigation/information for universities,

this system could greatly benefit communities that need

geo-based systems to help people learn the advantages and

possibilities of having location as a main factor for an

application.

II. RELATED WORK

Typically, geolocation apps do two things: They report

your location to other users, and they associate real-world

locations (such as restaurants and events) to your location.

Geolocation apps that run on mobile devices provide a

richer experience than those that run on desktop PCs

because the relevant data you send and receive changes as

your location changes [4].

To become familiar with the topic of GIS and AR, some

resources that have greatly improved the skills needed for

this project are the Google Maps API [5]. To store objects

like places, buildings, points, etc., Google Maps greatly

helps with understanding how these objects are made and

stored in the database schema.

Some products that are related to this specific study is

Foursquare. With this geolocation service, users are able to

check in to cafés, bars, restaurants, and pretty much

anyplace. Aside from the social impact of checking in to a

place when you’re actually there, it empowers users to

collect stamps/badges to track progress of places visited,

and overall keeping the consumer engaged with the

application.

Hackathon participation has also increased knowledge of

the topic as it has allowed to quickly iterate concepts to

proof the potential of geolocation applications. Hackathon

experience has greatly increased quick adaptation of new

concepts such as GIS/AR, and database schemas for

geographical information which are used in this study.

III. SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE

In order to visualize the location and other information, a

front-end Graphic User Interface (GUI) is required for the

An Emerging Study in Augmented Reality & Geographical Information System

Jonathan Rodriguez and Ching-Yu Huang

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International Journal of Computer Theory and Engineering, Vol. 9, No. 6, December 2017

DOI: 10.7763/IJCTE.2017.V9.1184

system. Since the system is designed for portable device

such as smartphone, a mobile app is necessary to be

developed. The database is the back-end to keep the

building coordinates, event information, images and other

information. The middle-end is to handle the data upload

from front-end and transferring between front-end and

back-end.

Fig. 1. System architecture.

A. Frontend: Mobile App

Fig. 2. Automatically check user’s location.

The GUI for this application will contain the current

location of the user and will display current information

about the place they are in (building, classroom, etc.). As a

user moves from a building to another or to another

classroom, the main view will update with current

information about their location, with interactive links and

videos that will show the users more information about their

location, as shown in Fig. 2.

The mobile app will read the GPS location from the

smartphone device and pass the altitude, orientation,

latitude, longitude and time information to the application at

the middle-end. The Latitude: 40.516289 and Longitude: -

74.378863 indicates the GPS location of the red marker

shown on Fig. 2. Since the mobile app uses Google Map

API, user can switch to Street View by clicking on the

“people icon” at left, or switch to Satellite View by clicking

on the “Satellite” at the right top.

To insert these objects to our database, a portal will be

built to submit records. A seamless UI will be designed for

easy interaction and administrators will be able to submit

buildings information alongside with specifics like

classroom schedules, special events, and videos about the

department. The Google Maps API is used to get the actual

coordinates of buildings for submission, as shown in Fig. 3.

It is important to understand that the GPS information

might be not accurate in general inside the building [6], [7].

Therefore, it is difficult to precisely identify the location

inside a building and display correct event information for

each floor and room. So, it might be better to just show the

events for the entire building as shown in Fig. 4. Especially,

each floor might have different heights, for example the first

floor of NAAB building is much taller than the 2nd

floor as

shown in Fig. 5 in addition to the GPS altitude values inside

the building could be not very accurate.

Since the GPS coordinates of the NAAB building

boundary are not available, we have to manually mark and

read the GPS coordinates on Google map [8] as shown in

Fig. 6, and store the information into the database.

Fig. 3. Drawing a polygon on the google maps.

Fig. 4. The polygon of NAAB building on Google map.

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International Journal of Computer Theory and Engineering, Vol. 9, No. 6, December 2017

B. Middle-End: Application Server

The application server is written in Javascript and is used

in par with AngularJS and Ionic Framework. These are new,

open-sourced technologies that will help build a robust app

front-end and server to handle the amount of computations

that will be made.

Fig. 5. The NAAB building at Kean University.

Fig. 6. The NAAB building displayed on a browser based on

www.googlemap.com.

The application requires a lot of computations in order

for the user to get updated geographic information and

interacting with the app. Understanding these computations

and how to decrease the amount of computations enhanced

math knowledge and overall computer science foundation.

Some crucial fields like the GPS coordinates will be

stored on the database, these coordinates come as points or

paired up points (Polygon). These points are a combination

of latitude and longitude pairs, as shown similar to a picture

EXIF information extraction, shown in Fig. 6.

Fig. 6. GPS EXIF information retrieved from an image.

IV. COURSE FRAMEWORK

This independent study has several components that are

necessary to develop the system. Some of them are not

offered in regular courses so students have to work with

faculty design their own curriculum. The framework

includes the computer programming languages for

designing the front-end and back-end, database knowledge

for storing and retrieving the data, AR and GIS knowledge

to work on the location and Google Map API, and the

mobile app development skills to implement the system on

mobile device.

A. Component 1: Programming Language

As this application is built using web technologies such

as Javascript, HTML and CSS, classes such as web

development greatly help understand how to build a front-

end interface and how to effectively use frameworks to

build more responsive and modern applications. As this

application use JavaScript in the client and server side, a

good foundation in the language in needed.

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International Journal of Computer Theory and Engineering, Vol. 9, No. 6, December 2017

C. Backend: Database Server

Fig. 7. JSON document with richer and more flexible data structures.

For this application, instead of using a relational database,

MongoDB [9] will be used. Since the performance between

a RDBMS and MongoDB is marginally in favor of

MongoDB, it seems like the best choice for this case. The

database server will receive a lot of requests when it is used

in a large scale (ex. Open House), and being able to do

queries fast will help in showing information on the

application faster.

MongoDB structures data into collections of JavaScript

Object Notation (JSON) [10] documents. JSON is a self-

describing, human readable data format. Originally

designed for lightweight exchanges between browser and

server, it has become widely accepted for many types of

applications. JSON is also a natural data format for use in

the application layer [11]. Supporting JSON will enable to

make more flexible data structures, as shown in Fig. 7.

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International Journal of Computer Theory and Engineering, Vol. 9, No. 6, December 2017

B. Component 2: Database

Many students only have experience with relational

databases with languages like MySQL, but as this study is

using MongoDB, it is recommended to at least have some

general database knowledge. Classes such as Database

Management Systems have helped understanding how to

manage a database and access rights for different users.

C. Component 3: Augmented Reality

To integrate the Augmented Reality element to the

system, a combination between Google Maps and Unity

engine will be implemented to show users directions to their

desired location with their back-facing camera. Background

using Unity engine is preferable, but Google Maps API

knowledge is more desired.

D. Component 4: Geographic Information System

To get familiar and proficient with building a

geographical information system, tools like ArcGIS were

used to grasp the concept. Hackathon experience trying out

these new concepts has improved the proficiency of

building this system and overall understanding of the study.

E. Component 5: Mobile Application Development

Previous internship experience has expanded mobile app

development knowledge. As many successful products has

been implemented in mobile applications, the best way to

make this application accessible to the general public is to

make it available in an app.

V. CONCLUSIONS

As geobased applications are becoming popular and

getting more exposure, a study like this shows how

geolocation can be used to make systems that allow more

immersive experiences with the surroundings around a

person. This study has helped understand how geolocation

works and how we can use places like buildings and build

entities on top on them. As a student, this study greatly

helps the understanding of how to build a geolocation

service for consumers. As this is a current work in progress,

the expectations for Spring semester is to fully bring this

project to life and test a pilot with the Open House events to

provide prospective students with an immersive experience

of the campus.

REFERENCES

[1] N. Schuurman, “GIS: A short introduction,” Wiley Publishing, May

2004.

[2] P. Bolstad, GIS Fundamentals: A First Text on Geographic

Information Systems, XanEdu Publishing Inc., 2016.

[3] K. D. Pomfret, “Policy & privacy: Geolocation – Lawmakers eye

geolocation apps,” GeoSpatial World, November 30, 2016.

[4] “Geolocation 101: How it works, the apps, and your privacy”,

PCWorld, Mar 29, 2010.

[5] J. Michael Sly, Getting around with Google Maps: A Programmer's Guide to the Google Maps API, CreateSpace Independent Publishing

Platform, 2014.

[6] How Accurate is the GPS on my Smartphone? (Part 1). [Online].

Available:

https://communityhealthmaps.nlm.nih.gov/2014/06/30/how-accurate-

is-the-gps-on-my-smartphone/

[7] How Accurate is the GPS on my Smartphone? (Part 2). [Online].

Available:

https://communityhealthmaps.nlm.nih.gov/2014/07/07/how-accurate-

is-the-gps-on-my-smart-phone-part-2/

[8] E. Petroutsos, "Google maps: Power tools for maximizing the API,”

McGraw-Hill Education, 2014.

[9] K. Chodorow, “MongoDB: The definitive guide: Powerful and

scalable data storage,” O'Reilly Media, 2013.

[10] L. Bassett, “Introduction to javascript object notation: A to-the-point

guide to JSON, ” O'Reilly Media, 2015.

[11] G. Fourny, M. Brantner, and F. Cavalieri, “JSONiq: The SQL of

NoSQL,” CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2013.

Jonathan Rodriguez was a senior student at Kean

University in Union, New Jersey. And he graduated

in 2017 with a BS degree in computer science. He is

currently a software developer in the financial

industry working on legacy applications and next

generation architecture.

Ching-Yu Huang is an assistant professor of the

School of Computer Science at Kean University

since September 2014. Dr. Huang was born in 1968

in Taiwan and received a Ph.D. in computer &

information science from New Jersey Institute of

Technology, Newark, New Jersey, USA in January

1998.

Prior to joining Kean University, Dr. Huang had

more than 16 years’ experience in the industry and

academics in software development and R&D in bioinformatics. His

research focuses SNP genotype calling and cluster detection; image

processing and pattern recognition, especially in microarray and

fingerprint; geotagged images and location information reconstruction;

database application development; data processing automation; E-learning,

educational multimedia, methodology, and online tools for secondary

schools and colleges. Dr. Huang has more than 20 publications in journals

and conferences and more than 20 presentations in workshops and invited

lectures.